The present invention relates generally to protection modes over a fiber channel protocol, and specifically to the use of mixed protection modes simultaneously over a virtualized host adapter in a virtual machine environment.
Virtual computing allows multiple guest operating systems to execute simultaneously on a single hardware device. Each of the guest operating systems may include different versions of the same operating system, or different operating systems, with each of the operating systems supporting various levels and types of security and data integrity requirements. In some instances these guest operating systems are in communication with storage systems that store data that is needed by the operating systems.
Heterogeneous environments may exist where the same host may support various levels of data integrity protection. These environments may be required to communicate with external storage via virtualized host bus adapters implemented by the same physical adapter. Multiple physical adapters are needed to support the various requirements of the heterogeneous operating systems leading to additional cost and overhead.